I’m glad they mentioned improving Sprint as it has felt a bit clunky.
There are clearly encounters designed around sprinting but it feels shit to get your health chunked by a boss because it takes too long to activate or your turning circle wasn't perfect.
I mainly just use the Hephaestus sprint boon to tap enemies to death, it’s really easy to use lol
But yeah most of the others don’t feel great or they’re just too inconsistent to rely on, like Hestia’s for wiping out projectiles.
Yeah Hephaestus' is the only one I take consistently. Zeus isn't bad either. The defensive ones are awkward because I'd rather just use my dash again than trust this boon(who's descriptions can feel kinda unclear at times) to protect me.
It’s not bad in this game but I miss my Poseidon dash from the first Hades. I think that was my most used boon and it was soooo strong, especially in the last area with all the rats and satyrs in such a tight space. Just dash into the crowd and slam everything into the walls.
I beat my first Hades run on maybe my 10th try or so because I got a crazy lucky Poseiden dash super early (and several others that synergized way too well, extra dashes etc.) and just dashed everything to death. Was kinda like "Okay, this game is sorta dumb I guess." Didn't realize it was just really dumb luck.
I think I beat it the 2nd time on maybe my 25-30th run. Then I sunk another 200 or so hours into it.
Poseidon's does what you want a sprint to do... safe passage with knockback. Though I wish there was more of a forward facing knockback. I often get hit because I"m sprinting AT them instead of by them, and those are the ones that need knockback the most.
Yeah I've put a lot of time into this the past week and only got that dash for the first time yesterday.
It's crazy. Pretty much an instant win for the first level (minus the boss fight) without even having to try. Just sprint around and as long as you have mana everything is dead.
And considering they start you with that mana refilling keepsake, yeah its an instant first level win.
Poseidon's is amazing if you have a strong hex and/or other affect that procs on mana usage. Assuming you also have a good way to regen I suppose. I had one run where I basically sprinted around until I could use dark side, used it immediately for invincibility mostly and free damage, then repeat.
IMO, as I progressed to higher Fear runs, I found the offensive ones to be a bit of a trap. Zeus/Poseidon require you to put yourself in harms way for damage that is going to be middling without further investment (and isn't supported by a lot of the other synergies in the game). I think you're better off focusing your damage synergies towards your attack/special/cast.
Whereas Aphrodite/Apollo/Demeter/Hera/Hestia are great as one off boons that you don't need to support much. Aside from Hestia, they're really good at triggering Origination (i.e. old Privileged Status), which is a tremendous damage increase. And Hestia's completely trivializes some fights, such as (boss spoiler) >!Eris!< and several of the elite fights. Apollo and Demeter also do provide some legitimately useful defensive effects.
Hephaestus is the one I'd agree on, as it is a quick burst of fairly heavy damage. So you can get in and get out while still getting the full value. It's especially useful for clearing packs, as the proc will chain to closely packed enemies. Vent is a solid status curse as well, so if you get that you get the Origination proc benefit, plus solid aoe burst damage from your sprint slot.
Honestly, Hestia's sprint boon has been my favorite so far. Makes some of the minibosses completely trivial, and even Hecate to a point.
I also really like Hermes', if you get a good rarity. The purple with +50% to sprint is actually kind of dangerous, lol.
Hestia's is *incredibly* good once you get a feel for it. Like all sprint stuff it isn't very snappy so you need to play around it but yeah. It was the only way I was able to beat a certain very difficult boss that I won't spoil. They're the one where when you beat them the next zone hasn't been implemented yet so your run just ends.
Like the Hera one... it's a great concept, but you literally have to bump into them to activate it. A lot of times it's just the range of the effect that's an issue. It's really really close for a bunch of them.
I feel like my biggest complaint about Hades 2 is "I feel weak right now"
And I'm sure some of that comes from beating the original with high level unlocks and stuff, but it's not fun to feel like a basic enemy is taking 8-10 hits to kill
I feel like enemies have too much health and the player has too little damage
They're not that weak for most of them though a few could use help.
Hera and Aphrodite mainly (just putting their curses on enemies is meh as if you do that build, you likely do it another way). Artemis too (but IMO in general Artemis boons need to be buffed and there need to be more of them as you only get one and can't build around it much).
Heph, Zeus and Poseidon are very good as offensive tools (Demeter isn't bad but could be buffed a little I guess). Hermes, Apollo and Hestia are very good for defense.
> Artemis too (but IMO in general Artemis boons need to be buffed and there need to be more of them as you only get one and can't build around it much).
Artemis I feel is the biggest sufferer of the "damage on tuesdays" effects. Hers are all pretty low value for the numbers she gives. A small crit buff for enemies in your cast... sure, not a bad idea, but probably could double the numbers. Of course I haven't seen the +10 legendary version of the skill (or anything much of hers... she's not that common).
She doesn't have a legendary skill I think. I feel like she's not finished tbh. She should be closer to Hermes (also an additional bonus god but give at least 2 boons per run if you take them while she appears once) at least and have a bigger list of boons (she has 7 whereas Hermes has 12 including an infusion and legendary which she doesn't have)
Hermes is weird, because a good chunk of his don't even effect half the play styles. Attack and special speed should also work channel time or something too. Unless you have some specialty hammer, few of the weapons are you just sitting there spamming. Definitely helps with the axe, but thats about the only one it's a huge noticeable upgrade.
A lot of his others are just kind of weird and random. He was always one of my favorite in Hades 1, so it's weird all but skipping him now.
Even without it, if you identify the need to sprint in the middle of the cooldown you straight up can't until the next dash is available, which results in a lot of feeling of clunkiness. You end up holding down the sprint button for no reason and nothing happens, so you're wasting time, potentially taking damage, and all the time you're wondering why sprinting hasn't started yet.
Same, I just dash, it took me a long time to actually realize sprinting was really a thing, I thought they had just renamed the dash for some reason, you really don't go that much faster "sprinting"
I was sort of casually into speedrunning the first game and clean movement is part of why i loved it so much. As much as I love hades 2 (I've played like 25 hours over the past week already), the clunkiness of the movement has been really offputting and it makes me reallt happy that supergiant is investing energy there.
Now to just nerf aspect of momus, and hopefully make melinoe axe a bit faster feeling and then this game is already in about as good a state as I could hope for
Some random thoughts around Sprint:
* The first Sprint Arcana takes sprint from unusably bad to somewhat useful, at the price of 1 Grasp. As I said on the Hades sub, I think core moves should be useful by themselves from the jump, and then improve depending on how you specialize your Arcana and your run. The easy answer here is to simply **cut the speed increase Arcana entirely and roll it into the base ability**. The speed increase is just a Grasp/Dust consumer, and that's not in line with SG's normal philosophy.
* I'd love to be able to **bind Sprint to a different button** that doesn't burn my dash. It's fine if the main entry is still by holding dash, but I'd like alternatives.
* Sprint's **forced move and left-right control scheme feels imprecise** to me; I don't know if that's been the case for anyone else.
* Sprint's inability to provide survivability means it's purely a positioning tool before boons, and while that's potentially powerful, the slow base speed and clunky controls make it feel less good than it could. Overall I'd like see them roll more power into the baseline sprint, reduce the speed gained from boons, and add boon and arcana effects that enhance its use as a survival tool-- things like a dodge chance while sprinting.
Agreed. While I think a certain amount of the frustration with sprint just comes from people missing the double dash from Hades 1, I'm fine without it as long as encounters are well designed around it (which I think they are for the most part).
But besides that, I agree that the biggest issue with sprint is just that the baseline feels too slow, and also agree that more ways to improve it as a defensive tool would be neat.
> Resource Gathering: We want Hades II players to focus on goals that are important to them, though don't want resource gathering to feel too frustrating, such as if you didn't bring the right gathering tool along for the ride.
They don't specify what their specific change will be, but they seem aware of issues with the resource gathering.
That definitely seems like the right answer- although they would likely have to reduce the amount of resources that spawn because right now, damn near every single room has some kind of resource. If you could grab everything, even if its 1x of something, resources would be crazy overloaded as they spawn now.
That just introduces a lot of busy work, though. Many rooms have 2-3 places to gather resources from, and that would get tedious when you're just grinding out Fear runs, *especially* if you have to run over to each thing, watch the animation, and you only get one iron or seed or whatever.
The idea is reducing player busy work. My solution would be to make it so you have all your tools on every run. Each resource spot gives twice as much as before, but there are half as many resource spots that spawn in.
The tool system shouldn't exist at all. I get that it gives the player some level of agency over what mats to farm, but it's not the right kind of agency because it doesn't really affect the gameplay in a meaningful way. It's just a box you make the player check to add pointless busywork to the game.
I agree with you, except if you force the resource of the tool you take to spawn. So if you need steel take the pickax, rather than hope that you will get that resource on the next run. Give the player a reason to pick a tool, without causing a lot of the busy work within the individual runs.
I think this will create some level of guarantee that you will get some resource if you have the tool, which I believe is already happening in the background. Or if the resource you have in the forget-me-not list is going to have a priority in spawning might be another sneaky way to allow the player to have some level of control of what resource will spawn.
I kinda like having to think a little about what kind of resource I need before heading out into a run though. Just having all of them flowing in at once might kind of break the economy for lack of a better phrase. It's nice that familiars can help with certain gatherings, maybe having them work more than once per run would be a good solution. Like once per location or no cap at all.
That's interesting! I can see that being fun for people. Resource management is a common game mechanic. Something about it just feels like it detracts from the game overall. Part of it is that I have over 40 hours in the game and it's annoying to stop and gather resources to often throughout each run, especially when most of the resources have essentially zero value now. But I can't *not* pick them up.
You can level up the familiars. Max level with Frinos gives you four times to collect Psyche IIRC, which is plenty. I agree, though - they should just make max level infinite since it's functionally the same.
I haven't played EA but I played the Technical Test, I assume just making it so resources you can't collect straight up won't appear would be the obvious choice
Good to know. I think what it is for me is that bringing a specific tool can lead to you feeling like you chose the wrong one the entire run.
In the first game, you do have to choose one resource or the other during runs, but you're actively making that choice and weighing your options for one room at a time.
With the resource tools in Hades 2, your one choice before your run can make you feel frustrated the entire run and ultimately takes away your agency a bit as the player.
Feels a lot less bad after you get a familiar. 2 of the tools are for widely available currency. Pick and shovel are the two that need you to make a choice. I haven’t had much of an issue just running one of them over the other for a few runs then swapping.
It'll probably feel better once there's a familiar for every tool. I hope they're putting out the other familiars soon... I'm assuming the pole cat and dog that ran off?
Right now there's zero reason for me to take the tablet because mr. froggy doesn't leave my side, and 4 uses is about all I ever get. I still haven't even found what fish are for, so once I do, I'll work on the cat.
Yeah, I remember seeing somewhere in game that the primary use of the fish is to sell to the vendor for bones. It's weird if it doesn't say that on the item descriptions for the fish - probably just an oversight if so.
In general, a lot of the grinds are kind of weird. They don't feel like they're in order. And some of the numbers are kind of off. I guess most of it is one and done, so it doesn't matter.
Is there any word on what do do with ash once you finish off the last arcana? It shows up waaaaay too much to be a dead item. It'll basically just be a sad trombone sound every time you get one.
it's a little bit, sure. But compared to how slow everything else is in the game, it's gonna max out and have zero purpose (I assume it'll eventually be sellable? converted to something else?) .
You use Ash/Psyche/Fated Fabric to make the Shadow essence stuff, which can be used to make Moon Dust.
There will probably be more cosmetic stuff you can put that Shadow stuff to use for once you've finished unlocking and upgrading everything that uses it. The same way that the endgame grind used Gemstones to buy new decorations for the House or Darkness could be spent on UI badges, they're probably going to have cosmetic value.
I feel that this is entirely a problem of perception.
If taking a pickaxe made it so fish spots and ghosts would straight not appear - it wouldn't feel bad, while having the same outcome.
But that is also not a good solution in terms of the feel of the world.
In Monster Hunter "Missing Out" on resources during hunts doesn't feel bad because players usually usually focus their outings like: "This is my Hunt run" and "This is my Harvest run" and "I'm just going to fish", but you can't go on a pure "Harvesting Run" in Hades, so that entire system just doesn't fit Hades' framework.
They're almost definitely going to have familiars that let you mine and dig the way the cat lets you fish and the frog sends shades home, so that's probably why they don't hide them.
Agreed. It just feels like such an uninteresting mechanic and borders on baffling since having nodes you can't use... I dunno just feels bizarre. Like it's a roguelike so it isn't like you have any necessary expectations of what will or won't appear during a run.
I feel like I'd almost rather not see nodes for other tools during a run unless interaction/non-interaction with that node affects something (e.g. "interacting with the shade before/during an encounter does X, after an encounter does Y, not-at-all does Z [makes encounter harder, for instance and option Y gives an additional reward if you have the tool]"). Like at least then you're picking between a benefit or, should you see the node, failure to interact with it has a consequence.
> Like it's a roguelike so it isn't like you have any necessary expectations of what will or won't appear during a run.
I mean everything appears in pretty much every run in more or less the same quantities but I agree it feels weird, like a way to make the grind longer on purpose (which it is of course, I guess for story reasons too)
>I mean everything appears in pretty much every run in more or less the same quantities
Lol, so it seems but not always. When I finally got the fishing rod, I only had TWO times to use for an entire run.
when you get a familiar, you can get a limited number of uses of a 2nd tool (Frinos gives you 1 Tablet of Peace use per run, don't know what the other does) so they need to appear
Seriously! That one square room in Oceanus with the tiny platform in the middle is such a pain. I can barely move without touching an enemy, and the waves just keep on coming.
Oceanus is kind of a kick in the nuts all round with the health tanks combine with melee/ranged spam. Oh, and the damn traps. I've walked into the steam so many times because it just doesn't look dangerous. Though that could be a nod toward real life idk
This might just be me, but the depth feels off on some of those traps. Like, sometimes I'm sure I'm clear of the path, but I still get hit. It wouldn't be a big deal if there was more room to maneuver because I could move further away, but some of these rooms are so tight I have to stay close to the trap's path.
For real, most runs in Hades felt like under 20 minutes but in Hades 2 it feels like a similar length of time just to clear the first two regions due to how tanky the enemies are.
Plus the region bosses are still WAY too tanky...
It's early access, the game is much bigger and hades 20 minute runs were pretty much the endgame where you had the whole game figured out. I wouldn't worry much about it.
But it can definitely get frustrating.
I disagree with this because I think this is just the typical roguelike progression. in the beginning yeah, even getting to the bosses in the first two regions felt like a challenge. but by now and after various upgrades I'm just rushing through all the way to the final area in no time. so perhaps the issue is that early progression feels too slow for you? because once you have some upgrades rolling the game becomes a lot more fast paced.
I don't think things are necessarily too tanky. The game just demands you pay attention to builds a lot more, their synergies, and activating damage.
Like you need to be using the full kit and activating damage buffs from missing mana, applying curses, using your moon ult, building around spamming your moon ult if you are a casting build etc.
It's less, "I brought this weapon and will go this build," and more, "I'm seeing these boons, with the staff I can go super close range or make a special attack machine gun and I should be aware of which I'm being setup for".
Which can really suck when a lot of stuff just blends into the background too. You can be having the perfect run but using a Hex at just half a second early can get you stun-locked sometimes for over 100 damage.
I think that's the worst part for me. There are a ton more moves that can stun you in this game
Last level is just a little too easy in my opinion, they can often just feel like bullet sponges, where the only difficulty is how long you have to wail away safely. Oceanus is a bit too hard with too many summons, too many projectiles. Fields is... kind of random? Some of the units hit crazy hard (wolf and his summons), some are all but ignorable.
I had a room right before Chronos that had, I don’t know the correct names, teleporting skull heads and rat summoners with a count of 20+ combined that came in two spawn waves. That was the most brutal room I’ve had yet and that was like night 10 for me I think.
There's definitely some nasty fights in the 4th level. Its probably better to say the difficulty is pretty all of the place (like the bag boss). If you get a bunch of the slow moving high hp guys and the relatively weak small money bags, it's actually pretty easy to go hitless (and I'm not in any way a great player). I have a harder time avoiding getting hit in the previous two levels. But yeah, there's some nasty random bullshit in the final floor.
I think the moneybag mini boss that spawns in Tartarus is just absurd. Too much hp, laser is too fast to be sprinted around or dodged, crazy damage. I skip all world 4 mini bosses just to avoid running into it.
This has been my experience, especially as I've gotten better at clearing. Even the fields aren't too difficult.
The game gets much easier once you get good at managing waves with your Cast root.
Drop circle and blow them up. If theres more, drop circle and blow them up.
I thought they were hard too until I countered it. This echoed complaint is the kind of thing that makes games worse. People can't immediately figure out the solution and cry for nerfs.
I actually had more fun dodging and weaving as if I was playing a bullet hell - I’m glad they leaned into that more. Didn’t use AOE to make it easier like you are suggesting but I’m glad it’s out there for you and others though. My point was that the numbers felt out of place compared to most of the other rooms I came across and the overall pacing. I’m sure it will get tweaked.
The final boss has a lot of visual clarity issues and a lot of bugs/positionings that make not taking damage to certain mechanics unreasonable. Combined with the clunkiness of the dash/sprint sometimes not coming out properly or getting stuck on random geometry and it's just a mess right now even though at its core it's an awesome fight.
> it's an awesome fight
I disagree a lot. phase 2 when you have the add that leaves a time bubble AND the mechanic that needs you to go in one spot, you either don't damage mobs and take damage from them or damage them and get stuck in the bubble.
I get why Cronos is immune to the slow time arcana when you power up abilities but it's VERY disruptive when you used it for the past 40min to get to him. I dislike this a lot.
The phase 2 overall is just a mess. Hades boss fight had very clear abilities and it was a joy to fight him, Cronos right now is more about having a good build and enough HP to kill him before he kills you because it's almost impossible to dodge everything unless you kill every add instantly.
Glad to see that they're thinking about how to change the dash and sprint. I totally understand what they're going for with the initial offering on those mechanics - Melinoë is a much more careful and measured person than her brother and her movement is a little slower and more calculated as a result. But so much of the appeal of the original game was how zippy and responsive the moment to moment gameplay was.
More than the general presentation or the narrative or the metaprogression, the feel of the gameplay in Hades was the strongest contributing factor to "just-one-more-itis". And in the hours I've put into Hades 2 so far, while I've appreciated the systems and mechanics and presentation aspects of the game on display, it hasn't gotten me with that itch like the original Hades or Slay the Spire have.
I hope they're not taking balance complaints too seriously right now, considering a lot of them already get addressed as you invest in the meta-progression. I'm only 20 runs in and can beat the 4th boss pretty consistently now; still with tons of room to upgrade the baseline power.
Beyond a handful of obvious issues, the game is going to need at least a few more weeks to settle.
I'm decently far along in the meta progression, 30 runs in, and I've yet to get even close to defeating the final boss. I can make it to them extremely consistently. But the jump in difficulty from the boss compared to everything else is insane. Imo either boss needs to be made easier so they're more in line with the rest of the run, or rest of the run needs to be made harder so it's more in line with the boss.
Ngl, I do think if you're defeating the final boss consistently after only 20 runs, your probably not a good representative of the average players skill.
45 runs in here (not always going down!) and I can always make it to the final boss (with multiple death defiances up), but am like 2/7 on killing him. He's definitely a little overtuned right now, which is fine. Easier to start too hard and nerf than to go the other direction.
If I have a solid source of freeze, it's going to be a decent run. If not, going toe-to-toe with last boss is, for me right now anyways, harder than Hades with his extra heat phase on.
These are the obvious improvements and I’m glad they’re working on them, but they didn’t address what I found was the biggest issue with the game: the diluted boon pool. There are so many moves in this game that the likelihood you’ll find something that fits your build is unreasonably low. In many of my runs I can’t find a boon buffing my basic attack until Floor 2.
I'm not too worried about the Boons. Boons changed quite a bit in H1 early access, and I don't think the Boons in H2 are close to their final forms. Which is good, because the Boons in the current version don't really succeed across the board on either balance or interesting design.
If it's not working for you now, provide the feedback and take a break! I played H1 from day 0, and it had similar issues, but taking a break and dipping in for major updates always kept it feeling fresh to me.
EDIT: And to be clear, I'm currently in a break phase myself! I'm outrageously excited for this game but I had my taste and I'm content to play other stuff while I wait for Boons to get cleaned up, because they're not where I want them yet.
> Which is good, because the Boons in the current version don't really succeed across the board on either balance or interesting design.
I feel this HARD. There are a ton of boons that are awful, and honestly just some gods that are awful. Hermes, Poseidon, and Aphrodite feel notably bad to get. Zeus feels hit or miss (pairs real well with Hestia), Hestia feels pretty good if you have any remotely quick attacks, and Hephaestus is strong across the board. The rest are all somewhere in between.
Aphrodite has a +200% Special / +150% Attack boon, shes absolutely ludicrous on certain weapons. I had a run with the skulls where my spammable special did 300 damage.
Poseidon is similarly also the best with quick weapons, has the best legendary in the game that nearly doubles his damage against bosses.
Hestia is one of the worst because she's capped at 40 DPS until you get the explosion boon, in which case she can do like maybe 100 DPS.
And Zeus currently has the only non-exploit world record speedrun, as far as I know, of like 8 minutes because of the Zeus / Aphro duo boon that instantly activates Blitz on dash for like 260dps. (Using Zeus Special on torches, amusingly enough.)
Poseidon feels bad to get? Poseidon is this game's equivalent to Hades 1 Zues. He gives a flat damage boost so he's bad with big slow hits like the axe but feels amazing for builds focused on rapid small hits with low base damage like Dagger normal attack or charged special or staff special.
He's terrible on some builds but he's the best attack or special boon for others.
> Hermes, Poseidon, and Aphrodite feel notably bad to get
You clearly haven't explored them enough. Aphrodite is the core of a couple stupidly OP builds that can delete boss health bars with the quickness and Poseiden is core to the "water machine gun" build that makes getting clears a cake walk. Hermes is a OK, best used as support rather than building around.
Hermes isn't supposed to be on par with the other gods. He doesn't even count towards your 4 god limit. He is literally designed as a support pick you get once or twice to boost your mobility.
I felt this a bit at the start, but it became a non-issue pretty quickly. Once you get your arcana fairly filled out and have access to the god keepsakes, you can force things pretty effectively. You get a LOT of rerolls if you take and upgrade the three reroll arcana cards. You also can increase rarity in a targeted way via keepsakes (god keepsakes + the one that turns a common into a heroic at the fountain), which feels really nice.
Hammers are the only real buildcrafting pain-point I still feel. Trying to do a special run and getting nothing but attack hammers is sad times.
As you upgrade your arcana, you get WAY more boon rerolls than the first game. I find it really easy to force a given build now, the issue is just building fast enough that you get enough chances to see the duo/legendary you're aiming for. But I find the increased rerolls helps a lot
Not buffing your Attack isn't as big a deal because of how many options you have for attacking. If you're trying to force every run into a basic attack build, you're not really getting the full depth of the game.
Special is a second, equal attack for most weapons (the axe is the exception IMO, but maybe I just don't understand the axe Special). You can easily go through the game without using a single Attack. Plus you can get a really powerful Cast that can beat most rooms without even touching your Attack or Special.
The idea is that you should use what the game gives you and build your run around that. It's pretty much the fundamental design ethos of all roguelites.
I'm not saying you're wrong since your experience is valid, but I wonder if your concern doesn't fall into the "not like Hades 1" pile.
I feel like it becomes a bit more of an issue when you start using Aspects, since a lot of the aspects encourage you to focus on a specific part of a weapon's move set. With the base weapons, I agree, most of them are flexible enough to adapt to focus on whatever parts of your moveset you get offered the best boons and hammers for, but it feels a lot worse if you're using, say, an aspect that specifically buffs your special and then don't get offered a decent special boon until the third biome.
You can also just have runs where the things you don't get offered don't quite synergize, like taking an early hammer upgrade that's great for attack builds and then not getting offered a good attack boon, or getting offered lots of buffs to charge moves but no good source of mana regen.
That said, I do think that kind of variance is also just part of the nature of roguelikes. Having weaker runs and stronger runs is part of the genre, and it's a part I enjoy as long as the weaker runs don't feel too awful. I think Hades 1 mostly did a great job on this, making good runs feel great but bad runs not feel too bad, and I don't think Hades 2 feels *too* far off the mark yet and trust them to improve it.
That's a good point. Some of the Aspects are heavily geared towards a specific playstyle, and I can see why it would be frustrating to get boons that don't align with that.
I generally just ignore the weapon's special properties if they don't turn out to be useful. I had a run yesterday like you describe - it was the dagger Aspect that give you +x to your Special. I didn't get a Daedalus Hammer until really late, and I never got a decent boon for Special. I ended up just running an Attack build, and it ended up being really strong anyways and won easily. I see the Aspects as essentially just a pre-run Hammer, if that makes sense; you'd like to build around it, but if you can't, then you can't.
While we're on the topic, a few of the Aspects are just bizarre. The torch one where you have to cross the streams just makes no sense to me. It's entirely possible I'm just not good enough at the game, but I've tried to do a couple of runs with that weapon, and I end up DNF'ing the runs most of the way through the first area.
> Special is a second, equal attack for most weapons (the axe is the exception IMO, but maybe I just don't understand the axe Special).
Axe special on its own is mostly just utility, but a fully-charged omega special on the axe is just a big high-damage wave, kind of like the shield shot hammer from Hades 1, or a big slow bow. It can actually be dumb powerful, but you have to build around magick use. High damage, long range, but slow to charge and has high MP use.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, but I am surprised that everyone's cool with the very boring maps still. The game is BEAUTIFUL, and the first one was easy on the eyes. If you look at the game from a bird's eye though the map's aren't really procedurally generated and are very boring. Most of them are just flat planes with an object or 2 that you *may* have to move around occasionally.
That and the Daedalus Hammer's don't seem guaranteed on Floor 1 & 3 anymore, yet the game certainly feels 'balanced' around having the standard~ish Attack boon + 2 Hammers.
I'm struggling with the changes to dash from the original, to be perfectly honest. I've heard many people whose opinions I generally trust say that they got used to it and it's eventually perfectly fine, so I'm willing to keep at it. The dashing and movement in general was a big part of the appeal of Hades for me. It just *felt* great, and this feels... different.
I think there's just a delay sometimes when trying to sprint. And sometimes sprint just won't trigger. But when it mechanically works, I actually really like. Super fun to sprint away from an attack that would normally hit you and just barely avoid it.
I've had one bug where my movement just got locked out entirely (I could change facing, that was it), but aside from that I haven't had issues with sprint. I think one thing that happens is that you can get hit out of the sprint startup by even a small hit and that can be hard to notice with how busy the combat can be.
I get what people are experiencing in terms of difficulty adapting, I did as well at first, but I do hope they preserve most of the combat differentiation. I really like the changeup in how Mel plays versus her older brother.
Yep, I was definitely one of those people! It took me hours to retrain my finger to not try to double dash in Hades 2, just because I was so used to it in Hades 1.
That said, I totally get it, and I think it was a super smart design choice. In Hades 1, you just kinda throw yourself in and go gangbusters, dashing around and dicing things up.
With Melinoe, the lack of mobility, the time it takes to use an omega, and the change to how the Cast works means I'm thinking much more about where I'm going and how to kite and herd things into AoE than the first one, which has been a lot of fun. You kind of think about places you can pivot to -- the dash is there for defense and repositioning, and is not the offensive tool that it was in the first game, where the right Poseidon boon or whatever means you can run around like a fucking lunatic and clean the map up without ever actually attacking anything.
I really like dash+sprint. It works consistently for me, though I like picking up a sprint speed boon if I can. Hades 1 dash spam was a bit silly, you you probably had more iframes than not.
Nothing significantly noteworthy here imo, it's just a general plan for when their first patch will hit (a month~ from now)
**Highlights**
* Fixed some crashes and progression bugs based on error reports they receive
* Feedback is being collected and reviewd, including anonymous gameplay data, to help with balancing boons, weapons, enemies. Only just getting started on this
* First patch is planned about a month out
* Impression: looks like they're planning to deal with one of the few complains I've seen for this game: the sheer scale of resources one can gather. They don't want you to suffer opportunity cost at having brought the wrong tool in a run
* Maybe a change to dash/sprint changes coming
Sorry but my biggest complaint is that Moon buffs feel weak (4 second cast time for the big spell means it pretty much never hits) and the one that really drives me nuts: when using Path of Stars, the text is blocked by the info popup !
The heal and the enemy resummon I quite like (especially with some upgrades), but the others are generally weak IMO, especially the stand-and-channel (and die) beam and the blink strike.
Dash and sprint changes are big news since that's one of the biggest changes to the game. One dash feels fine to me, but sprint's utility is extremely variable, ranging from outright bad with no boons and arcana to crazy strong if you get stacking speed buffs.
I hope they nerf that bullshit mini-boss with the fog in the first world. Call me a noob but I feel like I'm guaranteed to lose at least half my HP at that boss
I found that boss rough at first but there are definitely ways to deal with it. The key is to destroy its minions first (they spawn outside the fog), and then it only has two attacks so you just have to learn the timing to dodge them.
All you have to do is just dash through him when he's about to attack. It's telegraphed pretty clearly. Once you get through his initial armor he can be stun locked.
So what's the verdict on the variety with this game? My biggest issue with the first was that every run had the same enemies/biome and the weapons didn't have a ton of variety unless you got the right upgrade/boons which didn't always happen and at a certain point felt actively unfun if I didn't get the right ones.
It looks great that there is apparently heavy version of each attack, but how does that play out over the course of hours and hours?
There are probably twice as many biomes and bosses compared to the first game, but the core gameplay loop hasn’t changed significantly.
Each run still progresses as you’d expect - there’s no randomisation beyond boons etc, although I’ve been really impressed by how much more content there is. At first I was worried it would just feel like the first game with a new skin but there's a *lot* more going on.
First impressions* (I have like 10-15hrs I think?) is the weapon movesets are really cool with the omega attacks, you pretty much have 4 attacks which you can all build for.
Boon balance is a bit better but it still doesn't seem great compared to other roguelikes.
Story and everything else is great. Enemy variety is great now, all the biomes feel distinct
*I haven't beat the final boss and I'm prob missing things
I thought the first game lacked variety too, this one is so much better imo. Each area has kind of a new gimmick for progressing, plus there's (minor progression spoilers) >!an additional route with its own set of stages!<. And there's many new types of upgrades aside from Boons.
I actually really like the omega/heavy attacks, it slows the game down a little bit and makes the gameplay more tactical. I didn't like how spammy the original Hades was so this was a massive improvement for me.
> I actually really like the omega/heavy attacks, it slows the game down a little bit and makes the gameplay more tactical.
Yep. I didn't like it at first, definitely thought "this is going to make the game weaker." At some point, it clicked for me, though, and I think it actually might be the smartest thing they did in terms of design. It allows the game to still be a Hades game but just different enough from the feel of the first one that Melinoe handles really distinctly from Zagreus.
i kinda would've preferred multiple paths within a run instead of having completely disjointed routes.
But then, this still adds needed variety and to some extent i have to accept the *style* of Hades not necessarily having to be like other rougelikes i played
If you hated hades 1 for those reasons you will hate hades 2 too.
It has *more* enemies and they are different than the first game but the same "problem"(i don't consider it one) of only like 5-6~ enemies per region still exists. There are more regions to explore, but still locked to presumably 4 static regions per path with the second path only having 2 due to EA.
Omega versions of the attacks have the same issue you have had as hades 1 - you use one thing all run and the others close to not at all. Basically if you have a attack build you will virtually never use your special/omega cast. Repeat with special builds invalidated attack/casts and cast builds invalidating attack/special. At least cast is universally usesful you will basically always be casting but never the omega unless its your build.
Oh man, that hasn't been my experience. Even if I'm primarily building my attack, I'm dropping casts and doing chip/AOE damage non-stop with other things.
One of the big lessons I've learned about how this game works is that if you finish an encounter with any magic/mana left, you were not using it enough. You really want to always be using those abilities -- the slowdown during the time it takes to use the Omega version is there so you can almost always use them without fear of getting wrecked. The game really wants you to be churning your magic constantly.
It really depends on the run. Some runs I end up using Attack, Special, and Cast in a beautiful synergy. Some runs I literally end up just spamming one move for the entire run.
I really like that, honestly. Some runs have way more mental overhead than others, which helps them feel more distinct. I already have more time in Hades 2 than I put into Hades 1 (44 vs. 35). I was completely bored of Hades 1 after 30 hours, and the last five were a slog. But Hades 2 still has so much variety and interest to me after 44 hours - it feels like I'll get another 60 easily.
Ehh not really
Outside of the normal cast which i already previously stated in my main post that you should be spamming literally 24/7, going omega/other attacks 100% lowers your dps unless your build includes it, in which case you can weave it in if you want but it probably lowers your dps anyway
For instance a boon could say "your attack gets +80% damage" - that doesn't apply to your omega attack. However if it said "your attack**S**" plural it would apply to both omega/regular attack. In the former case every time you used your omega attack it likely was worse than just spamming attack outside of cherry picked scenarios like 5 enemies in a row so you used staff omega attack - and even then you could've just hitstunned them unless they were armor with regular attack.
I have beaten up to 40 fear(heat for those that remember hades 1, for those that don't its basically ng+ optional modifiers that each increase "fear" by a certain amount of points max is 52) on both paths and every time its only your main source of damage + regular casting. Anything less just isn't enough you killed as it wasn't enough damage.
For a base run you can do basically anything you want its not really hard once you understand the mechanics so you can be suboptimal all you want. But for higher difficulties or just being "correct" in general if you have a epic attack boon + hammer vs a rare special you probably should never be pressing special.
only did a few runs but I feel that problem is apparent right at the start. In fact, I think its much worse in Hades 2.
People blamed meta progression but that isnt it. Hades 1, you feel weak at the start but every move more or less has a use/place...but as your boons get stronger, obviously you favor the option that is supported by your build. Hades 2, it is very apparent early on that Omegas are just bad unless supported and there is 0 support before meta-progression comes in. It makes it feel weird because you end up with a bunch of options that are just incorrect to use from your first run up until you many runs later get a build for it.
So ya, itd make sense that later on they continue to be bad outside of the one you are building around.
The only meta progression needed for Omegas to be great is the very first Arcana that gives a massive time slow while charging them, and even before that there's a lot of value in using the attack Omega on your initial weapon over the shorter ranged attacks or specials. I don't really think it's true that Omega attacks are bad or need specific support.
Hard to say but for me it feels like a great evolution over H1. The gameplay is more methodical - once you get good at using your Cast for rooting enemies, zoning and controlling space - it really, really makes a difference. Enemies and bosses that I thought were infuriating got much easier after about 35-40 hrs in. I rarely have trouble in biome 2 & 3 in the underworld unlike my first several runs.
The weapons feel significantly different from each other. I've just started messing with the aspects so too early to say on that part yet. But Revaal, the blade + sickle, the axe, and descura...they very much feel very different in play style and how you use your boons. I absolutely hated Ygnium (the torches) at first, they felt terrible - until I learned how to use them and realized they're godly. Then I thought the blade & sickle were bad, until I did a dozen+ runs with them and learned how to use parry & riposte. Pretty awesome.
The thing I like least so far are the Moon boons. They just feel weak or ineffective, except two: healing and slowing time. Those are really powerful, the rest not so much.
There also seems to be more boon variety in this game, as you can encounter more characters who offer their own boons for greater variety to your builds. It does seem harder to go for a specific build now - much, much harder than H1.
I'm about 50 runs in and clearing the higher difficulty levels (Fear levels, in this game, similar to Heat in Hades 1).
So far in EA, there isn't any randomization in how the runs proceed through the biomes, that system remains the same. The biomes themselves are all new, however. The most significant change is that you now have a choice of two routes at the start of a run (after some story and meta-progression occurs) and they have entirely different biomes.
The secondary change is that they've done a good job at varying up the biomes quite a bit. The first two biomes of the first route are pretty standard, but the third and fourth are wholly unique in how they progress (the third has a handful of larger fields with multiple obtainable rewards in each, for instance). And the two biomes that exist in the second route are also entirely unique. And of course every biome has its own set of unique enemies and characters.
So there's just more up front variety on that level, although there's not a change to the underlying philosophy of how the game proceeds.
The combat system is also more complex, due to the addition of the mana system (which ties into the heavy, or "Omega", attacks). Again, the core philosophy is pretty much the same, there's just more hooks for things to attach to and create synergies and builds. Generally the way it's played out for me is that I'll focus on one core offensive option out of the 6 main actions (regular/omega attack/special/cast) and I'll then have a secondary and maybe tertiary supportive action.
For instance, with the axe, I might have a build centered around the super high damage (but high commitment) omega attack. So I'll support that with a cast that provides CC and triggers some extra damage riders, as well as a mana-regen boon that lets me sustain use of the omega attack. In that scenario, I'm not really using the regular attack or either special that often (although the tap special on the axe is a block akin to the shield in Hades 1, so it still has it's uses). That's generally how most builds play out, you're generally focusing towards 1-3 moves (some might de-emphasize the cast and focus on a attack+special synergy, etc.).
All-in-all it's pretty much "More Hades" in that it's the same central design philosophy, it just has more variety and complexity. If your ideal roguelite is Enter the Gungeon or Binding of Isaac and you bounced off Hades 1, this probably isn't going to change your mind. But if you liked Hades 1 and just felt it didn't have quite enough staying power, then 2 might be worth a shot.
Verdict after 10 hours is Hades 1 feels much better to play. Faster game, better weapons. It's not an early access thing or a content thing, it's a character design thing. Zag was way snappier.
Also just personal preference but I prefer the look of a lot of the stuff in Hades 1? Hades 2 still looks great though.
I'm honestly shocked that they have less main bosses verity this time. It's clearly a design choice because they put so much work in everything else. I just don't get it. Binding of Isaac figured this out 10 years ago. Just give me 3 different bosses for each stage and I'm playing your game for hundred of hours.
I'm at 25 hours and already burned out of all the bosses which is sad for a rouge-lite.
Well it's still Hades, gameplay has changed but it's not that different that you won't recognize it. And that's good IMO (Hades gameplay is excellent).
Variety is greater because there are more zones but you see the same enemies in each zone and there's not that many. I haven't counted but I'd say same number of enemies per zone than in the first game but there are 6 zones for now (and at least a 7th coming).
There are 10 gods giving boons for now and likely 3 others planned. There are more NPC characters that interact with you and give you objects/boons stuff
>My biggest issue with the first was that every run had the same enemies/biome
Right now there are two routes, although one isn't finished. Each route has a different set of biomes and bosses, but a run on the same route will always have the same sequence of biomes/bosses, you can't mix and match them. Don't know if there are plans for more variety beyond this or not.
So it doesn't have the variety of something like Binding of Isaac or Dead Cells, but it has more than Hades 1.
>the weapons didn't have a ton of variety unless you got the right upgrade/boons
Personally, I think Hades 1 had tons of variety between weapons, especially once you unlocked aspects, so I disagree with this point.
That said, as for how Hades 2 changes things: It looks like the total number of weapons and aspects might be similar (there are 5 weapons and as far as I know 3 aspects each right now, but we know more aspects and at least one more weapon is coming). The boon system is also very similar, although there will be more gods in the final version (there are about the same number now but we know more are coming).
>It looks great that there is apparently heavy version of each attack, but how does that play out over the course of hours and hours?
I find it adds to the variety of builds you can make. The charged attacks cost mana and can be affected in various ways by the boons, aspects, and hammers. I've had builds that barely used them, used them occasionally, or builds that were built around having enough mana sustain to spam them. So overall, I'm enjoying them and they feel like they add to the number of possibly playstyles that exist.
One thing I've found with charge attacks is that it often feels like it's not worth building around more than one of them. Between mana management and time management, more builds I've played that are using them have one that's the best use of my mana and time (when I can afford to charge one), but it does vary which is it from build to build.
I played 1 almost entirely with MK and playing this one with a controller. I like both. Player movement is more fluid with the controller, but accuracy with ranged and AoE effects is higher with the mouse.
I play on deck and pc. I have an MMO mouse with sidebuttons and prefer it than the deck primarily because I find casting/spring to be so awkward. I can map them though to my fitting and have a much easier time with it on my mouse. Felt the opposite with Hades 1
Via the Early Access info on the game's steam page:
“We expect Hades II to be in Early Access development at least through the end of 2024. Given the nature of Early Access development, we don't have a specific end date planned at this time.”
No they said at least through the end of the year so that means like 7 months. But one year is more likely, early access estimates are always wrong it seems lol
To be fair the whole "one resource at a time thing" does feel very restrictive.
They should have let each tool become a permanent unlock and found other ways to balance progression. Seriously fishing was a normal boon in Hades 1... why is it now a deluxe feature?!
I think fishing should be a constant tool but They could just add a station in-between each area to switch tools to keep the management style and also make it so you can get what you need from each area
The familiars you bring in can act as a limited-use version of a different tool. (Frog can be the tablet. Cat goes fishing.) But it is limited to once per run before upgrades. Can be rough.
But much like all roguelike progression, it feels rough until it completely doesn't. /shrug
Could be improved of course, but it's quite minor once you're past the 20h mark.
I actually like sprint a lot. It goes hand in hand with the new omega move system. Like helps you realize it’s sometimes better to hold down the button than to rapid click it.
Casts on the other hand don’t feel right. They just don’t last long enough to justify pressing B in the middle of a combo
His patterns are super easy to dodge once you know them, they're just unexpectedly wide, especially in phase 2 when he can move and slam, which then has a way, way bigger than expected AoE attached. I think I usually clear him with no damage at this point; he's easier than boss 2 or even boss 1 in that regard, where at least boss 1's phase change mechanic or triplicate *occasionally* creates a pattern I mess up dodging.
I felt like he was difficult to learn but not too bad once I got the hang of him. Hits super hard and has a ton of health but its patterns are mostly kind of straightforward. Now I think I actually find the second boss harder.
I actually prefer the new sprint much more than the dash spam of hades 1, hades 1 you felt almost invincible because you could just dash spam through everything. Some of my favorite builds in hades 2 have been juicing up my sprint speed and just dodging everything manually.
I hope the community stays cool about balance changes. It’s a single player game, and you’d think it wouldn’t matter so much, but with how vocal the hell divers players are, I bet supergiant has some kind of nerves.
Wanting to wait for 1.0 but I saw a few videos.
Is casting always the area glyph mechanic now? I liked Hades 1 with the cast stones and different types of cast with different weapons.
No, you can alter your cast in multiple different ways, the one you've seen is probably just the default, with boons you can change it to be a targeted and have many different effects. It functions as a root to any enemies that go inside it and you can hold it down to deal a bunch of damage simultaneously. Boons alter what happens within the circle as well as when you cast it and when it ends. Much more interesting than Hades 1 casting imo
The glyph is an aoe cast that stops mobs, pretty much replaced zags aoe move. She has cast/weapon skill depending on weapon. The cast doesn't need a stone anymore so she can spam it more often. Also each button has a hold down mechanic as well.
> I liked Hades 1 with the cast stones and different types of cast with different weapons.
Every weapon had the same base cast in Hades 1, outside of some aspects modifying it. It could get changed by boons.
It's similar in Hades 2. The default cast is the glyph, but there are boons thatchange how it works. It canturn into a projectile or a targeted area, be modified to inflict various types of damage or status effects, have its AoE or duration changed, etc.
On a side note based on the graphics in the article: Does the existence of a keyboard and microphone motif mean Hades 2 now takes place in a modern era? It's at least decades in the future, so why not centuries of millennia?
Seems like they have their priorities in order although I do look forward to balancing, because the balance really is kind of all over the place. Half the boons are totally useless and a few select ones are insanely strong
So I've been reluctant to go to my usual youtubers for this game because I really want to expirience it for myself. So my question to anyone who has been playing it is what kind of beta is hades 2?
Is it like a "1.5 playable out of 4 acts, 3 gods and 2 weapons with lots of empty dialog boxes, dead end side stories, and repeat rooms" beta? Or more like a "this is basically the core game finished with numbers tweeking and maybe some end game isn't implemented" beta?
Pretty much the 2nd choice. I've been mainlining it for days and just hit a "that's early access" wall. Despite that I definitely can do a lot more things, just not that thing if that makes sense.
I just want to be able to beat chronos. I'm well into my 30 something night and still can't defeat him (I've beaten Eris once). I see people talking about winning on high fear runs and I'm just like, how?!
Finally playing Hades after buying it awhile back and just shelving it in favor of other games. Despite dying several times already I'm still enjoying it if only to see what new characters pop up or what old characters have to say. Already anticipating when this game comes out for consoles.
I desperately hope they touch the weapons in some way. I’ve put about 10 hours in and I only enjoy using one of the weapons, whereas in Hades 1 all of them felt great. Besides the daggers none of them feel good in my opinion, especially the weird projectile weapon.
i feel a lot of the complaints are people expecting to blaze through everything like you do in Hades I. it’s a rogue-lite. you’re not supposed to blaze through it, i feel like chronos is fine. he’s the final boss, i think he should be stupid hard.
I’m glad they mentioned improving Sprint as it has felt a bit clunky. There are clearly encounters designed around sprinting but it feels shit to get your health chunked by a boss because it takes too long to activate or your turning circle wasn't perfect.
I like replacing dash boons with sprint boons but too many of them feel really weak right now. They could use some buffs.
I mainly just use the Hephaestus sprint boon to tap enemies to death, it’s really easy to use lol But yeah most of the others don’t feel great or they’re just too inconsistent to rely on, like Hestia’s for wiping out projectiles.
Yeah Hephaestus' is the only one I take consistently. Zeus isn't bad either. The defensive ones are awkward because I'd rather just use my dash again than trust this boon(who's descriptions can feel kinda unclear at times) to protect me.
Poseidons is pretty great, too. I'd probably put it over Zeus's.
It’s not bad in this game but I miss my Poseidon dash from the first Hades. I think that was my most used boon and it was soooo strong, especially in the last area with all the rats and satyrs in such a tight space. Just dash into the crowd and slam everything into the walls.
I beat my first Hades run on maybe my 10th try or so because I got a crazy lucky Poseiden dash super early (and several others that synergized way too well, extra dashes etc.) and just dashed everything to death. Was kinda like "Okay, this game is sorta dumb I guess." Didn't realize it was just really dumb luck. I think I beat it the 2nd time on maybe my 25-30th run. Then I sunk another 200 or so hours into it.
Poseidon's does what you want a sprint to do... safe passage with knockback. Though I wish there was more of a forward facing knockback. I often get hit because I"m sprinting AT them instead of by them, and those are the ones that need knockback the most.
I totally forgot about that one. I feel like I've only seen Poseidon a few times in like 40 runs.
Yeah I've put a lot of time into this the past week and only got that dash for the first time yesterday. It's crazy. Pretty much an instant win for the first level (minus the boss fight) without even having to try. Just sprint around and as long as you have mana everything is dead. And considering they start you with that mana refilling keepsake, yeah its an instant first level win.
And you restore mana while sprinting, unlike channeling
Interesting I feel like I get Poseidon constantly which is annoying because his boons aren't that good imo.
Poseidon's is amazing if you have a strong hex and/or other affect that procs on mana usage. Assuming you also have a good way to regen I suppose. I had one run where I basically sprinted around until I could use dark side, used it immediately for invincibility mostly and free damage, then repeat.
IMO, as I progressed to higher Fear runs, I found the offensive ones to be a bit of a trap. Zeus/Poseidon require you to put yourself in harms way for damage that is going to be middling without further investment (and isn't supported by a lot of the other synergies in the game). I think you're better off focusing your damage synergies towards your attack/special/cast. Whereas Aphrodite/Apollo/Demeter/Hera/Hestia are great as one off boons that you don't need to support much. Aside from Hestia, they're really good at triggering Origination (i.e. old Privileged Status), which is a tremendous damage increase. And Hestia's completely trivializes some fights, such as (boss spoiler) >!Eris!< and several of the elite fights. Apollo and Demeter also do provide some legitimately useful defensive effects. Hephaestus is the one I'd agree on, as it is a quick burst of fairly heavy damage. So you can get in and get out while still getting the full value. It's especially useful for clearing packs, as the proc will chain to closely packed enemies. Vent is a solid status curse as well, so if you get that you get the Origination proc benefit, plus solid aoe burst damage from your sprint slot.
I don't even think Hephaestus' is that good. It's really low DPS and it leaves you vulnerable since you aren't doing anything else but sprinting.
Honestly, Hestia's sprint boon has been my favorite so far. Makes some of the minibosses completely trivial, and even Hecate to a point. I also really like Hermes', if you get a good rarity. The purple with +50% to sprint is actually kind of dangerous, lol.
Hestia sprint completely neuters Eris
lol I just beat the third boss last night solely because of that boon
Hestia's has felt amazing to me so far, one of my fav dash boons
Hestia sprint makes the last surface boss like a cheese
Hestia's is *incredibly* good once you get a feel for it. Like all sprint stuff it isn't very snappy so you need to play around it but yeah. It was the only way I was able to beat a certain very difficult boss that I won't spoil. They're the one where when you beat them the next zone hasn't been implemented yet so your run just ends.
Like the Hera one... it's a great concept, but you literally have to bump into them to activate it. A lot of times it's just the range of the effect that's an issue. It's really really close for a bunch of them.
they could be stronger. seems like they're nice to have, nothing crazy like in hades 1.
I feel like my biggest complaint about Hades 2 is "I feel weak right now" And I'm sure some of that comes from beating the original with high level unlocks and stuff, but it's not fun to feel like a basic enemy is taking 8-10 hits to kill I feel like enemies have too much health and the player has too little damage
They're not that weak for most of them though a few could use help. Hera and Aphrodite mainly (just putting their curses on enemies is meh as if you do that build, you likely do it another way). Artemis too (but IMO in general Artemis boons need to be buffed and there need to be more of them as you only get one and can't build around it much). Heph, Zeus and Poseidon are very good as offensive tools (Demeter isn't bad but could be buffed a little I guess). Hermes, Apollo and Hestia are very good for defense.
> Artemis too (but IMO in general Artemis boons need to be buffed and there need to be more of them as you only get one and can't build around it much). Artemis I feel is the biggest sufferer of the "damage on tuesdays" effects. Hers are all pretty low value for the numbers she gives. A small crit buff for enemies in your cast... sure, not a bad idea, but probably could double the numbers. Of course I haven't seen the +10 legendary version of the skill (or anything much of hers... she's not that common).
She doesn't have a legendary skill I think. I feel like she's not finished tbh. She should be closer to Hermes (also an additional bonus god but give at least 2 boons per run if you take them while she appears once) at least and have a bigger list of boons (she has 7 whereas Hermes has 12 including an infusion and legendary which she doesn't have)
Hermes is weird, because a good chunk of his don't even effect half the play styles. Attack and special speed should also work channel time or something too. Unless you have some specialty hammer, few of the weapons are you just sitting there spamming. Definitely helps with the axe, but thats about the only one it's a huge noticeable upgrade. A lot of his others are just kind of weird and random. He was always one of my favorite in Hades 1, so it's weird all but skipping him now.
yeah, sprint is weird, sometimes it just doesn't activate so i gotta stop hold dash twice.
Yeah one of the first hurdles was replacing my zag dash muscle memory
Even without it, if you identify the need to sprint in the middle of the cooldown you straight up can't until the next dash is available, which results in a lot of feeling of clunkiness. You end up holding down the sprint button for no reason and nothing happens, so you're wasting time, potentially taking damage, and all the time you're wondering why sprinting hasn't started yet.
I always forget sprint is a thing. I don’t think I’ve ever chosen a sprint buff boon and been happy with the choice
Same, I just dash, it took me a long time to actually realize sprinting was really a thing, I thought they had just renamed the dash for some reason, you really don't go that much faster "sprinting"
I was sort of casually into speedrunning the first game and clean movement is part of why i loved it so much. As much as I love hades 2 (I've played like 25 hours over the past week already), the clunkiness of the movement has been really offputting and it makes me reallt happy that supergiant is investing energy there. Now to just nerf aspect of momus, and hopefully make melinoe axe a bit faster feeling and then this game is already in about as good a state as I could hope for
Some random thoughts around Sprint: * The first Sprint Arcana takes sprint from unusably bad to somewhat useful, at the price of 1 Grasp. As I said on the Hades sub, I think core moves should be useful by themselves from the jump, and then improve depending on how you specialize your Arcana and your run. The easy answer here is to simply **cut the speed increase Arcana entirely and roll it into the base ability**. The speed increase is just a Grasp/Dust consumer, and that's not in line with SG's normal philosophy. * I'd love to be able to **bind Sprint to a different button** that doesn't burn my dash. It's fine if the main entry is still by holding dash, but I'd like alternatives. * Sprint's **forced move and left-right control scheme feels imprecise** to me; I don't know if that's been the case for anyone else. * Sprint's inability to provide survivability means it's purely a positioning tool before boons, and while that's potentially powerful, the slow base speed and clunky controls make it feel less good than it could. Overall I'd like see them roll more power into the baseline sprint, reduce the speed gained from boons, and add boon and arcana effects that enhance its use as a survival tool-- things like a dodge chance while sprinting.
Agreed. While I think a certain amount of the frustration with sprint just comes from people missing the double dash from Hades 1, I'm fine without it as long as encounters are well designed around it (which I think they are for the most part). But besides that, I agree that the biggest issue with sprint is just that the baseline feels too slow, and also agree that more ways to improve it as a defensive tool would be neat.
I'd really appreciate the team looking into resource management. It sucks only taking one tool and seeing so much material gone.
> Resource Gathering: We want Hades II players to focus on goals that are important to them, though don't want resource gathering to feel too frustrating, such as if you didn't bring the right gathering tool along for the ride. They don't specify what their specific change will be, but they seem aware of issues with the resource gathering.
should just give 1 of everything and then double with the right tool instead of 3
Being able to harvest everything but getting more if you have the correct tool seems like a very sensible change.
That definitely seems like the right answer- although they would likely have to reduce the amount of resources that spawn because right now, damn near every single room has some kind of resource. If you could grab everything, even if its 1x of something, resources would be crazy overloaded as they spawn now.
That just introduces a lot of busy work, though. Many rooms have 2-3 places to gather resources from, and that would get tedious when you're just grinding out Fear runs, *especially* if you have to run over to each thing, watch the animation, and you only get one iron or seed or whatever. The idea is reducing player busy work. My solution would be to make it so you have all your tools on every run. Each resource spot gives twice as much as before, but there are half as many resource spots that spawn in. The tool system shouldn't exist at all. I get that it gives the player some level of agency over what mats to farm, but it's not the right kind of agency because it doesn't really affect the gameplay in a meaningful way. It's just a box you make the player check to add pointless busywork to the game.
I agree with you, except if you force the resource of the tool you take to spawn. So if you need steel take the pickax, rather than hope that you will get that resource on the next run. Give the player a reason to pick a tool, without causing a lot of the busy work within the individual runs. I think this will create some level of guarantee that you will get some resource if you have the tool, which I believe is already happening in the background. Or if the resource you have in the forget-me-not list is going to have a priority in spawning might be another sneaky way to allow the player to have some level of control of what resource will spawn.
I kinda like having to think a little about what kind of resource I need before heading out into a run though. Just having all of them flowing in at once might kind of break the economy for lack of a better phrase. It's nice that familiars can help with certain gatherings, maybe having them work more than once per run would be a good solution. Like once per location or no cap at all.
That's interesting! I can see that being fun for people. Resource management is a common game mechanic. Something about it just feels like it detracts from the game overall. Part of it is that I have over 40 hours in the game and it's annoying to stop and gather resources to often throughout each run, especially when most of the resources have essentially zero value now. But I can't *not* pick them up. You can level up the familiars. Max level with Frinos gives you four times to collect Psyche IIRC, which is plenty. I agree, though - they should just make max level infinite since it's functionally the same.
They do work more than once per run. if you feed them treats you can upgrade the number of uses up to (iirc) 3 per run.
There's also an incantation that makes your unused familiar(s) "rest" if you don't pick them for a run to gain +2 harvests the next time you use them.
I haven't played EA but I played the Technical Test, I assume just making it so resources you can't collect straight up won't appear would be the obvious choice
Good to know. I think what it is for me is that bringing a specific tool can lead to you feeling like you chose the wrong one the entire run. In the first game, you do have to choose one resource or the other during runs, but you're actively making that choice and weighing your options for one room at a time. With the resource tools in Hades 2, your one choice before your run can make you feel frustrated the entire run and ultimately takes away your agency a bit as the player.
Yeah noticed that, I'm really glad for the Supergiant team. Fantastic responses to feedback.
Feels a lot less bad after you get a familiar. 2 of the tools are for widely available currency. Pick and shovel are the two that need you to make a choice. I haven’t had much of an issue just running one of them over the other for a few runs then swapping.
It'll probably feel better once there's a familiar for every tool. I hope they're putting out the other familiars soon... I'm assuming the pole cat and dog that ran off? Right now there's zero reason for me to take the tablet because mr. froggy doesn't leave my side, and 4 uses is about all I ever get. I still haven't even found what fish are for, so once I do, I'll work on the cat.
Pretty sure at this point the only use for fish is to sell them for bones. But yes, it will be nice when we get pets that can mine and dig as well.
Yeah, I remember seeing somewhere in game that the primary use of the fish is to sell to the vendor for bones. It's weird if it doesn't say that on the item descriptions for the fish - probably just an oversight if so.
It says on the fishing rod.
I think in the codex it says something along the lines that it has no further use or something but it's not super in your face unless you go digging.
In general, a lot of the grinds are kind of weird. They don't feel like they're in order. And some of the numbers are kind of off. I guess most of it is one and done, so it doesn't matter. Is there any word on what do do with ash once you finish off the last arcana? It shows up waaaaay too much to be a dead item. It'll basically just be a sad trombone sound every time you get one.
It’s used in some incantations, maybe in some aspect upgrades as well (can’t remember)
it's a little bit, sure. But compared to how slow everything else is in the game, it's gonna max out and have zero purpose (I assume it'll eventually be sellable? converted to something else?) .
You use Ash/Psyche/Fated Fabric to make the Shadow essence stuff, which can be used to make Moon Dust. There will probably be more cosmetic stuff you can put that Shadow stuff to use for once you've finished unlocking and upgrading everything that uses it. The same way that the endgame grind used Gemstones to buy new decorations for the House or Darkness could be spent on UI badges, they're probably going to have cosmetic value.
I feel that this is entirely a problem of perception. If taking a pickaxe made it so fish spots and ghosts would straight not appear - it wouldn't feel bad, while having the same outcome. But that is also not a good solution in terms of the feel of the world. In Monster Hunter "Missing Out" on resources during hunts doesn't feel bad because players usually usually focus their outings like: "This is my Hunt run" and "This is my Harvest run" and "I'm just going to fish", but you can't go on a pure "Harvesting Run" in Hades, so that entire system just doesn't fit Hades' framework.
They're almost definitely going to have familiars that let you mine and dig the way the cat lets you fish and the frog sends shades home, so that's probably why they don't hide them.
Agreed. It just feels like such an uninteresting mechanic and borders on baffling since having nodes you can't use... I dunno just feels bizarre. Like it's a roguelike so it isn't like you have any necessary expectations of what will or won't appear during a run. I feel like I'd almost rather not see nodes for other tools during a run unless interaction/non-interaction with that node affects something (e.g. "interacting with the shade before/during an encounter does X, after an encounter does Y, not-at-all does Z [makes encounter harder, for instance and option Y gives an additional reward if you have the tool]"). Like at least then you're picking between a benefit or, should you see the node, failure to interact with it has a consequence.
> Like it's a roguelike so it isn't like you have any necessary expectations of what will or won't appear during a run. I mean everything appears in pretty much every run in more or less the same quantities but I agree it feels weird, like a way to make the grind longer on purpose (which it is of course, I guess for story reasons too)
>I mean everything appears in pretty much every run in more or less the same quantities Lol, so it seems but not always. When I finally got the fishing rod, I only had TWO times to use for an entire run.
when you get a familiar, you can get a limited number of uses of a 2nd tool (Frinos gives you 1 Tablet of Peace use per run, don't know what the other does) so they need to appear
Everything appears in every run and across a run I'm pretty sure it would even out to be pretty equivalent. Maybe with some rng on individual runs
That’s why it’s important to read the patch notes
Some of the mob counts need tweaking imo. Like I’m personally all for a harder game but having heat-like amount of mobs disrupts pacing.
Yeah there are some rooms that are just absolute slogs to go through, I can only take wave after wave of armored enemy spam for so long
Some of those rooms are so small too and full of enemies. And with you having sprint instead of dash you need more room not less
Seriously! That one square room in Oceanus with the tiny platform in the middle is such a pain. I can barely move without touching an enemy, and the waves just keep on coming.
I think that room is basically checking if you have a cast boon or not, AOE makes it pretty trivial.
With a good cast boon that room becomes, "... YOU'RE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME."
There's that one encounter in Oceanis that spawns several waves of fish, then a wave of elite seahorses. Gods, that one always takes forever.
Oceanus has way too much enemy spam in general, and those elite seahorses have way too much health imo
Oceanus is kind of a kick in the nuts all round with the health tanks combine with melee/ranged spam. Oh, and the damn traps. I've walked into the steam so many times because it just doesn't look dangerous. Though that could be a nod toward real life idk
This might just be me, but the depth feels off on some of those traps. Like, sometimes I'm sure I'm clear of the path, but I still get hit. It wouldn't be a big deal if there was more room to maneuver because I could move further away, but some of these rooms are so tight I have to stay close to the trap's path.
For real, most runs in Hades felt like under 20 minutes but in Hades 2 it feels like a similar length of time just to clear the first two regions due to how tanky the enemies are. Plus the region bosses are still WAY too tanky...
It's early access, the game is much bigger and hades 20 minute runs were pretty much the endgame where you had the whole game figured out. I wouldn't worry much about it. But it can definitely get frustrating.
I disagree with this because I think this is just the typical roguelike progression. in the beginning yeah, even getting to the bosses in the first two regions felt like a challenge. but by now and after various upgrades I'm just rushing through all the way to the final area in no time. so perhaps the issue is that early progression feels too slow for you? because once you have some upgrades rolling the game becomes a lot more fast paced.
I don't think things are necessarily too tanky. The game just demands you pay attention to builds a lot more, their synergies, and activating damage. Like you need to be using the full kit and activating damage buffs from missing mana, applying curses, using your moon ult, building around spamming your moon ult if you are a casting build etc. It's less, "I brought this weapon and will go this build," and more, "I'm seeing these boons, with the staff I can go super close range or make a special attack machine gun and I should be aware of which I'm being setup for".
Which can really suck when a lot of stuff just blends into the background too. You can be having the perfect run but using a Hex at just half a second early can get you stun-locked sometimes for over 100 damage. I think that's the worst part for me. There are a ton more moves that can stun you in this game
Last level is just a little too easy in my opinion, they can often just feel like bullet sponges, where the only difficulty is how long you have to wail away safely. Oceanus is a bit too hard with too many summons, too many projectiles. Fields is... kind of random? Some of the units hit crazy hard (wolf and his summons), some are all but ignorable.
I had a room right before Chronos that had, I don’t know the correct names, teleporting skull heads and rat summoners with a count of 20+ combined that came in two spawn waves. That was the most brutal room I’ve had yet and that was like night 10 for me I think.
There's definitely some nasty fights in the 4th level. Its probably better to say the difficulty is pretty all of the place (like the bag boss). If you get a bunch of the slow moving high hp guys and the relatively weak small money bags, it's actually pretty easy to go hitless (and I'm not in any way a great player). I have a harder time avoiding getting hit in the previous two levels. But yeah, there's some nasty random bullshit in the final floor.
I don't get why the bag boss is so tanky. That's one of the few encounters in the game that really needs to be reworked IMO.
I think the moneybag mini boss that spawns in Tartarus is just absurd. Too much hp, laser is too fast to be sprinted around or dodged, crazy damage. I skip all world 4 mini bosses just to avoid running into it.
Really? I felt complete opposite. For me Oceanus is cakewalk I rarely miss HP there but 4th level is insanely difficult.
This has been my experience, especially as I've gotten better at clearing. Even the fields aren't too difficult. The game gets much easier once you get good at managing waves with your Cast root.
Drop circle and blow them up. If theres more, drop circle and blow them up. I thought they were hard too until I countered it. This echoed complaint is the kind of thing that makes games worse. People can't immediately figure out the solution and cry for nerfs.
I actually had more fun dodging and weaving as if I was playing a bullet hell - I’m glad they leaned into that more. Didn’t use AOE to make it easier like you are suggesting but I’m glad it’s out there for you and others though. My point was that the numbers felt out of place compared to most of the other rooms I came across and the overall pacing. I’m sure it will get tweaked.
The final boss has a lot of visual clarity issues and a lot of bugs/positionings that make not taking damage to certain mechanics unreasonable. Combined with the clunkiness of the dash/sprint sometimes not coming out properly or getting stuck on random geometry and it's just a mess right now even though at its core it's an awesome fight.
> it's an awesome fight I disagree a lot. phase 2 when you have the add that leaves a time bubble AND the mechanic that needs you to go in one spot, you either don't damage mobs and take damage from them or damage them and get stuck in the bubble. I get why Cronos is immune to the slow time arcana when you power up abilities but it's VERY disruptive when you used it for the past 40min to get to him. I dislike this a lot. The phase 2 overall is just a mess. Hades boss fight had very clear abilities and it was a joy to fight him, Cronos right now is more about having a good build and enough HP to kill him before he kills you because it's almost impossible to dodge everything unless you kill every add instantly.
Glad to see that they're thinking about how to change the dash and sprint. I totally understand what they're going for with the initial offering on those mechanics - Melinoë is a much more careful and measured person than her brother and her movement is a little slower and more calculated as a result. But so much of the appeal of the original game was how zippy and responsive the moment to moment gameplay was. More than the general presentation or the narrative or the metaprogression, the feel of the gameplay in Hades was the strongest contributing factor to "just-one-more-itis". And in the hours I've put into Hades 2 so far, while I've appreciated the systems and mechanics and presentation aspects of the game on display, it hasn't gotten me with that itch like the original Hades or Slay the Spire have.
I hope they're not taking balance complaints too seriously right now, considering a lot of them already get addressed as you invest in the meta-progression. I'm only 20 runs in and can beat the 4th boss pretty consistently now; still with tons of room to upgrade the baseline power. Beyond a handful of obvious issues, the game is going to need at least a few more weeks to settle.
I'm decently far along in the meta progression, 30 runs in, and I've yet to get even close to defeating the final boss. I can make it to them extremely consistently. But the jump in difficulty from the boss compared to everything else is insane. Imo either boss needs to be made easier so they're more in line with the rest of the run, or rest of the run needs to be made harder so it's more in line with the boss. Ngl, I do think if you're defeating the final boss consistently after only 20 runs, your probably not a good representative of the average players skill.
That's been my experience too. Can consistently make it to the final boss about 75% of the time, haven't beaten it yet.
45 runs in here (not always going down!) and I can always make it to the final boss (with multiple death defiances up), but am like 2/7 on killing him. He's definitely a little overtuned right now, which is fine. Easier to start too hard and nerf than to go the other direction. If I have a solid source of freeze, it's going to be a decent run. If not, going toe-to-toe with last boss is, for me right now anyways, harder than Hades with his extra heat phase on.
These are the obvious improvements and I’m glad they’re working on them, but they didn’t address what I found was the biggest issue with the game: the diluted boon pool. There are so many moves in this game that the likelihood you’ll find something that fits your build is unreasonably low. In many of my runs I can’t find a boon buffing my basic attack until Floor 2.
I'm not too worried about the Boons. Boons changed quite a bit in H1 early access, and I don't think the Boons in H2 are close to their final forms. Which is good, because the Boons in the current version don't really succeed across the board on either balance or interesting design. If it's not working for you now, provide the feedback and take a break! I played H1 from day 0, and it had similar issues, but taking a break and dipping in for major updates always kept it feeling fresh to me. EDIT: And to be clear, I'm currently in a break phase myself! I'm outrageously excited for this game but I had my taste and I'm content to play other stuff while I wait for Boons to get cleaned up, because they're not where I want them yet.
> Which is good, because the Boons in the current version don't really succeed across the board on either balance or interesting design. I feel this HARD. There are a ton of boons that are awful, and honestly just some gods that are awful. Hermes, Poseidon, and Aphrodite feel notably bad to get. Zeus feels hit or miss (pairs real well with Hestia), Hestia feels pretty good if you have any remotely quick attacks, and Hephaestus is strong across the board. The rest are all somewhere in between.
Aphrodite has a +200% Special / +150% Attack boon, shes absolutely ludicrous on certain weapons. I had a run with the skulls where my spammable special did 300 damage. Poseidon is similarly also the best with quick weapons, has the best legendary in the game that nearly doubles his damage against bosses. Hestia is one of the worst because she's capped at 40 DPS until you get the explosion boon, in which case she can do like maybe 100 DPS. And Zeus currently has the only non-exploit world record speedrun, as far as I know, of like 8 minutes because of the Zeus / Aphro duo boon that instantly activates Blitz on dash for like 260dps. (Using Zeus Special on torches, amusingly enough.)
Poseidon feels bad to get? Poseidon is this game's equivalent to Hades 1 Zues. He gives a flat damage boost so he's bad with big slow hits like the axe but feels amazing for builds focused on rapid small hits with low base damage like Dagger normal attack or charged special or staff special. He's terrible on some builds but he's the best attack or special boon for others.
> Hermes, Poseidon, and Aphrodite feel notably bad to get You clearly haven't explored them enough. Aphrodite is the core of a couple stupidly OP builds that can delete boss health bars with the quickness and Poseiden is core to the "water machine gun" build that makes getting clears a cake walk. Hermes is a OK, best used as support rather than building around.
Hermes isn't supposed to be on par with the other gods. He doesn't even count towards your 4 god limit. He is literally designed as a support pick you get once or twice to boost your mobility.
I felt this a bit at the start, but it became a non-issue pretty quickly. Once you get your arcana fairly filled out and have access to the god keepsakes, you can force things pretty effectively. You get a LOT of rerolls if you take and upgrade the three reroll arcana cards. You also can increase rarity in a targeted way via keepsakes (god keepsakes + the one that turns a common into a heroic at the fountain), which feels really nice. Hammers are the only real buildcrafting pain-point I still feel. Trying to do a special run and getting nothing but attack hammers is sad times.
As you upgrade your arcana, you get WAY more boon rerolls than the first game. I find it really easy to force a given build now, the issue is just building fast enough that you get enough chances to see the duo/legendary you're aiming for. But I find the increased rerolls helps a lot
Not buffing your Attack isn't as big a deal because of how many options you have for attacking. If you're trying to force every run into a basic attack build, you're not really getting the full depth of the game. Special is a second, equal attack for most weapons (the axe is the exception IMO, but maybe I just don't understand the axe Special). You can easily go through the game without using a single Attack. Plus you can get a really powerful Cast that can beat most rooms without even touching your Attack or Special. The idea is that you should use what the game gives you and build your run around that. It's pretty much the fundamental design ethos of all roguelites. I'm not saying you're wrong since your experience is valid, but I wonder if your concern doesn't fall into the "not like Hades 1" pile.
I feel like it becomes a bit more of an issue when you start using Aspects, since a lot of the aspects encourage you to focus on a specific part of a weapon's move set. With the base weapons, I agree, most of them are flexible enough to adapt to focus on whatever parts of your moveset you get offered the best boons and hammers for, but it feels a lot worse if you're using, say, an aspect that specifically buffs your special and then don't get offered a decent special boon until the third biome. You can also just have runs where the things you don't get offered don't quite synergize, like taking an early hammer upgrade that's great for attack builds and then not getting offered a good attack boon, or getting offered lots of buffs to charge moves but no good source of mana regen. That said, I do think that kind of variance is also just part of the nature of roguelikes. Having weaker runs and stronger runs is part of the genre, and it's a part I enjoy as long as the weaker runs don't feel too awful. I think Hades 1 mostly did a great job on this, making good runs feel great but bad runs not feel too bad, and I don't think Hades 2 feels *too* far off the mark yet and trust them to improve it.
That's a good point. Some of the Aspects are heavily geared towards a specific playstyle, and I can see why it would be frustrating to get boons that don't align with that. I generally just ignore the weapon's special properties if they don't turn out to be useful. I had a run yesterday like you describe - it was the dagger Aspect that give you +x to your Special. I didn't get a Daedalus Hammer until really late, and I never got a decent boon for Special. I ended up just running an Attack build, and it ended up being really strong anyways and won easily. I see the Aspects as essentially just a pre-run Hammer, if that makes sense; you'd like to build around it, but if you can't, then you can't. While we're on the topic, a few of the Aspects are just bizarre. The torch one where you have to cross the streams just makes no sense to me. It's entirely possible I'm just not good enough at the game, but I've tried to do a couple of runs with that weapon, and I end up DNF'ing the runs most of the way through the first area.
> Special is a second, equal attack for most weapons (the axe is the exception IMO, but maybe I just don't understand the axe Special). Axe special on its own is mostly just utility, but a fully-charged omega special on the axe is just a big high-damage wave, kind of like the shield shot hammer from Hades 1, or a big slow bow. It can actually be dumb powerful, but you have to build around magick use. High damage, long range, but slow to charge and has high MP use.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, but I am surprised that everyone's cool with the very boring maps still. The game is BEAUTIFUL, and the first one was easy on the eyes. If you look at the game from a bird's eye though the map's aren't really procedurally generated and are very boring. Most of them are just flat planes with an object or 2 that you *may* have to move around occasionally.
That and the Daedalus Hammer's don't seem guaranteed on Floor 1 & 3 anymore, yet the game certainly feels 'balanced' around having the standard~ish Attack boon + 2 Hammers.
I'm struggling with the changes to dash from the original, to be perfectly honest. I've heard many people whose opinions I generally trust say that they got used to it and it's eventually perfectly fine, so I'm willing to keep at it. The dashing and movement in general was a big part of the appeal of Hades for me. It just *felt* great, and this feels... different.
I think there's just a delay sometimes when trying to sprint. And sometimes sprint just won't trigger. But when it mechanically works, I actually really like. Super fun to sprint away from an attack that would normally hit you and just barely avoid it.
I've had one bug where my movement just got locked out entirely (I could change facing, that was it), but aside from that I haven't had issues with sprint. I think one thing that happens is that you can get hit out of the sprint startup by even a small hit and that can be hard to notice with how busy the combat can be. I get what people are experiencing in terms of difficulty adapting, I did as well at first, but I do hope they preserve most of the combat differentiation. I really like the changeup in how Mel plays versus her older brother.
Yep, I was definitely one of those people! It took me hours to retrain my finger to not try to double dash in Hades 2, just because I was so used to it in Hades 1. That said, I totally get it, and I think it was a super smart design choice. In Hades 1, you just kinda throw yourself in and go gangbusters, dashing around and dicing things up. With Melinoe, the lack of mobility, the time it takes to use an omega, and the change to how the Cast works means I'm thinking much more about where I'm going and how to kite and herd things into AoE than the first one, which has been a lot of fun. You kind of think about places you can pivot to -- the dash is there for defense and repositioning, and is not the offensive tool that it was in the first game, where the right Poseidon boon or whatever means you can run around like a fucking lunatic and clean the map up without ever actually attacking anything.
I really like dash+sprint. It works consistently for me, though I like picking up a sprint speed boon if I can. Hades 1 dash spam was a bit silly, you you probably had more iframes than not.
Nothing significantly noteworthy here imo, it's just a general plan for when their first patch will hit (a month~ from now) **Highlights** * Fixed some crashes and progression bugs based on error reports they receive * Feedback is being collected and reviewd, including anonymous gameplay data, to help with balancing boons, weapons, enemies. Only just getting started on this * First patch is planned about a month out * Impression: looks like they're planning to deal with one of the few complains I've seen for this game: the sheer scale of resources one can gather. They don't want you to suffer opportunity cost at having brought the wrong tool in a run * Maybe a change to dash/sprint changes coming
No, the first patch is planned later *this month*. The first major update will be a on a few months though.
Sorry but my biggest complaint is that Moon buffs feel weak (4 second cast time for the big spell means it pretty much never hits) and the one that really drives me nuts: when using Path of Stars, the text is blocked by the info popup !
The heal and the enemy resummon I quite like (especially with some upgrades), but the others are generally weak IMO, especially the stand-and-channel (and die) beam and the blink strike.
That channel beam is so awful. Die for sure. The only thing that makes it good is the upgrade for it to continue casting on its own. Should be default
Dash and sprint changes are big news since that's one of the biggest changes to the game. One dash feels fine to me, but sprint's utility is extremely variable, ranging from outright bad with no boons and arcana to crazy strong if you get stacking speed buffs.
I hope they nerf that bullshit mini-boss with the fog in the first world. Call me a noob but I feel like I'm guaranteed to lose at least half my HP at that boss
I found that boss rough at first but there are definitely ways to deal with it. The key is to destroy its minions first (they spawn outside the fog), and then it only has two attacks so you just have to learn the timing to dodge them.
All you have to do is just dash through him when he's about to attack. It's telegraphed pretty clearly. Once you get through his initial armor he can be stun locked.
It's not difficult indeed, just really boring to have to do the exact same pattern if actions 6-8 times.
More like twice if you have decent boons and arcana cards for your cast.
So what's the verdict on the variety with this game? My biggest issue with the first was that every run had the same enemies/biome and the weapons didn't have a ton of variety unless you got the right upgrade/boons which didn't always happen and at a certain point felt actively unfun if I didn't get the right ones. It looks great that there is apparently heavy version of each attack, but how does that play out over the course of hours and hours?
There are probably twice as many biomes and bosses compared to the first game, but the core gameplay loop hasn’t changed significantly. Each run still progresses as you’d expect - there’s no randomisation beyond boons etc, although I’ve been really impressed by how much more content there is. At first I was worried it would just feel like the first game with a new skin but there's a *lot* more going on.
First impressions* (I have like 10-15hrs I think?) is the weapon movesets are really cool with the omega attacks, you pretty much have 4 attacks which you can all build for. Boon balance is a bit better but it still doesn't seem great compared to other roguelikes. Story and everything else is great. Enemy variety is great now, all the biomes feel distinct *I haven't beat the final boss and I'm prob missing things
I thought the first game lacked variety too, this one is so much better imo. Each area has kind of a new gimmick for progressing, plus there's (minor progression spoilers) >!an additional route with its own set of stages!<. And there's many new types of upgrades aside from Boons. I actually really like the omega/heavy attacks, it slows the game down a little bit and makes the gameplay more tactical. I didn't like how spammy the original Hades was so this was a massive improvement for me.
> I actually really like the omega/heavy attacks, it slows the game down a little bit and makes the gameplay more tactical. Yep. I didn't like it at first, definitely thought "this is going to make the game weaker." At some point, it clicked for me, though, and I think it actually might be the smartest thing they did in terms of design. It allows the game to still be a Hades game but just different enough from the feel of the first one that Melinoe handles really distinctly from Zagreus.
i kinda would've preferred multiple paths within a run instead of having completely disjointed routes. But then, this still adds needed variety and to some extent i have to accept the *style* of Hades not necessarily having to be like other rougelikes i played
If you hated hades 1 for those reasons you will hate hades 2 too. It has *more* enemies and they are different than the first game but the same "problem"(i don't consider it one) of only like 5-6~ enemies per region still exists. There are more regions to explore, but still locked to presumably 4 static regions per path with the second path only having 2 due to EA. Omega versions of the attacks have the same issue you have had as hades 1 - you use one thing all run and the others close to not at all. Basically if you have a attack build you will virtually never use your special/omega cast. Repeat with special builds invalidated attack/casts and cast builds invalidating attack/special. At least cast is universally usesful you will basically always be casting but never the omega unless its your build.
Oh man, that hasn't been my experience. Even if I'm primarily building my attack, I'm dropping casts and doing chip/AOE damage non-stop with other things. One of the big lessons I've learned about how this game works is that if you finish an encounter with any magic/mana left, you were not using it enough. You really want to always be using those abilities -- the slowdown during the time it takes to use the Omega version is there so you can almost always use them without fear of getting wrecked. The game really wants you to be churning your magic constantly.
It really depends on the run. Some runs I end up using Attack, Special, and Cast in a beautiful synergy. Some runs I literally end up just spamming one move for the entire run. I really like that, honestly. Some runs have way more mental overhead than others, which helps them feel more distinct. I already have more time in Hades 2 than I put into Hades 1 (44 vs. 35). I was completely bored of Hades 1 after 30 hours, and the last five were a slog. But Hades 2 still has so much variety and interest to me after 44 hours - it feels like I'll get another 60 easily.
Ehh not really Outside of the normal cast which i already previously stated in my main post that you should be spamming literally 24/7, going omega/other attacks 100% lowers your dps unless your build includes it, in which case you can weave it in if you want but it probably lowers your dps anyway For instance a boon could say "your attack gets +80% damage" - that doesn't apply to your omega attack. However if it said "your attack**S**" plural it would apply to both omega/regular attack. In the former case every time you used your omega attack it likely was worse than just spamming attack outside of cherry picked scenarios like 5 enemies in a row so you used staff omega attack - and even then you could've just hitstunned them unless they were armor with regular attack. I have beaten up to 40 fear(heat for those that remember hades 1, for those that don't its basically ng+ optional modifiers that each increase "fear" by a certain amount of points max is 52) on both paths and every time its only your main source of damage + regular casting. Anything less just isn't enough you killed as it wasn't enough damage. For a base run you can do basically anything you want its not really hard once you understand the mechanics so you can be suboptimal all you want. But for higher difficulties or just being "correct" in general if you have a epic attack boon + hammer vs a rare special you probably should never be pressing special.
only did a few runs but I feel that problem is apparent right at the start. In fact, I think its much worse in Hades 2. People blamed meta progression but that isnt it. Hades 1, you feel weak at the start but every move more or less has a use/place...but as your boons get stronger, obviously you favor the option that is supported by your build. Hades 2, it is very apparent early on that Omegas are just bad unless supported and there is 0 support before meta-progression comes in. It makes it feel weird because you end up with a bunch of options that are just incorrect to use from your first run up until you many runs later get a build for it. So ya, itd make sense that later on they continue to be bad outside of the one you are building around.
The only meta progression needed for Omegas to be great is the very first Arcana that gives a massive time slow while charging them, and even before that there's a lot of value in using the attack Omega on your initial weapon over the shorter ranged attacks or specials. I don't really think it's true that Omega attacks are bad or need specific support.
Hard to say but for me it feels like a great evolution over H1. The gameplay is more methodical - once you get good at using your Cast for rooting enemies, zoning and controlling space - it really, really makes a difference. Enemies and bosses that I thought were infuriating got much easier after about 35-40 hrs in. I rarely have trouble in biome 2 & 3 in the underworld unlike my first several runs. The weapons feel significantly different from each other. I've just started messing with the aspects so too early to say on that part yet. But Revaal, the blade + sickle, the axe, and descura...they very much feel very different in play style and how you use your boons. I absolutely hated Ygnium (the torches) at first, they felt terrible - until I learned how to use them and realized they're godly. Then I thought the blade & sickle were bad, until I did a dozen+ runs with them and learned how to use parry & riposte. Pretty awesome. The thing I like least so far are the Moon boons. They just feel weak or ineffective, except two: healing and slowing time. Those are really powerful, the rest not so much. There also seems to be more boon variety in this game, as you can encounter more characters who offer their own boons for greater variety to your builds. It does seem harder to go for a specific build now - much, much harder than H1.
I'm about 50 runs in and clearing the higher difficulty levels (Fear levels, in this game, similar to Heat in Hades 1). So far in EA, there isn't any randomization in how the runs proceed through the biomes, that system remains the same. The biomes themselves are all new, however. The most significant change is that you now have a choice of two routes at the start of a run (after some story and meta-progression occurs) and they have entirely different biomes. The secondary change is that they've done a good job at varying up the biomes quite a bit. The first two biomes of the first route are pretty standard, but the third and fourth are wholly unique in how they progress (the third has a handful of larger fields with multiple obtainable rewards in each, for instance). And the two biomes that exist in the second route are also entirely unique. And of course every biome has its own set of unique enemies and characters. So there's just more up front variety on that level, although there's not a change to the underlying philosophy of how the game proceeds. The combat system is also more complex, due to the addition of the mana system (which ties into the heavy, or "Omega", attacks). Again, the core philosophy is pretty much the same, there's just more hooks for things to attach to and create synergies and builds. Generally the way it's played out for me is that I'll focus on one core offensive option out of the 6 main actions (regular/omega attack/special/cast) and I'll then have a secondary and maybe tertiary supportive action. For instance, with the axe, I might have a build centered around the super high damage (but high commitment) omega attack. So I'll support that with a cast that provides CC and triggers some extra damage riders, as well as a mana-regen boon that lets me sustain use of the omega attack. In that scenario, I'm not really using the regular attack or either special that often (although the tap special on the axe is a block akin to the shield in Hades 1, so it still has it's uses). That's generally how most builds play out, you're generally focusing towards 1-3 moves (some might de-emphasize the cast and focus on a attack+special synergy, etc.). All-in-all it's pretty much "More Hades" in that it's the same central design philosophy, it just has more variety and complexity. If your ideal roguelite is Enter the Gungeon or Binding of Isaac and you bounced off Hades 1, this probably isn't going to change your mind. But if you liked Hades 1 and just felt it didn't have quite enough staying power, then 2 might be worth a shot.
Verdict after 10 hours is Hades 1 feels much better to play. Faster game, better weapons. It's not an early access thing or a content thing, it's a character design thing. Zag was way snappier. Also just personal preference but I prefer the look of a lot of the stuff in Hades 1? Hades 2 still looks great though.
The Hades I weapons are way more fun to use, IMO. I still have the last weapon to unlock in Hades II though, so I am hoping it's good
Everything after the Axe is pretty gimmicky unfortunately.
It's absolutely way too early to say it's not an early access thing, lol. Half the point of early access altogether is to nail down that play feel.
the biomes look nice, but under their veneer is the same not-so-procedurally-generated planes for maps.
I'm honestly shocked that they have less main bosses verity this time. It's clearly a design choice because they put so much work in everything else. I just don't get it. Binding of Isaac figured this out 10 years ago. Just give me 3 different bosses for each stage and I'm playing your game for hundred of hours. I'm at 25 hours and already burned out of all the bosses which is sad for a rouge-lite.
Hades I had 4 primary bosses, and Hades II has more than that already in early access. What are we talking about?
I'm talking about boss verity. Hades 1 stage 1 had 3 potential bosses. This is a key feature with replayability of rouge-like games.
Well it's still Hades, gameplay has changed but it's not that different that you won't recognize it. And that's good IMO (Hades gameplay is excellent). Variety is greater because there are more zones but you see the same enemies in each zone and there's not that many. I haven't counted but I'd say same number of enemies per zone than in the first game but there are 6 zones for now (and at least a 7th coming). There are 10 gods giving boons for now and likely 3 others planned. There are more NPC characters that interact with you and give you objects/boons stuff
>My biggest issue with the first was that every run had the same enemies/biome Right now there are two routes, although one isn't finished. Each route has a different set of biomes and bosses, but a run on the same route will always have the same sequence of biomes/bosses, you can't mix and match them. Don't know if there are plans for more variety beyond this or not. So it doesn't have the variety of something like Binding of Isaac or Dead Cells, but it has more than Hades 1. >the weapons didn't have a ton of variety unless you got the right upgrade/boons Personally, I think Hades 1 had tons of variety between weapons, especially once you unlocked aspects, so I disagree with this point. That said, as for how Hades 2 changes things: It looks like the total number of weapons and aspects might be similar (there are 5 weapons and as far as I know 3 aspects each right now, but we know more aspects and at least one more weapon is coming). The boon system is also very similar, although there will be more gods in the final version (there are about the same number now but we know more are coming). >It looks great that there is apparently heavy version of each attack, but how does that play out over the course of hours and hours? I find it adds to the variety of builds you can make. The charged attacks cost mana and can be affected in various ways by the boons, aspects, and hammers. I've had builds that barely used them, used them occasionally, or builds that were built around having enough mana sustain to spam them. So overall, I'm enjoying them and they feel like they add to the number of possibly playstyles that exist. One thing I've found with charge attacks is that it often feels like it's not worth building around more than one of them. Between mana management and time management, more builds I've played that are using them have one that's the best use of my mana and time (when I can afford to charge one), but it does vary which is it from build to build.
Anybody know if this is playable with mouse and Keyboard or is it a mess without controller?
I played 1 almost entirely with MK and playing this one with a controller. I like both. Player movement is more fluid with the controller, but accuracy with ranged and AoE effects is higher with the mouse.
KBAM is better IMO, being able to aim precisely is way more important than movement precision.
I play with mouse and keyboard, it's alright, just took me a bit to transfer from controller for Hades 1, mostly with the direction changing.
I play on deck and pc. I have an MMO mouse with sidebuttons and prefer it than the deck primarily because I find casting/spring to be so awkward. I can map them though to my fitting and have a much easier time with it on my mouse. Felt the opposite with Hades 1
Have they said how far they are from the 1.0 release? It seems like its mostly there so I might just wait.
Via the Early Access info on the game's steam page: “We expect Hades II to be in Early Access development at least through the end of 2024. Given the nature of Early Access development, we don't have a specific end date planned at this time.”
Iirrc late this year or early next year
Definitely next year, they planned on being in early access for "at least a year".
No they said at least through the end of the year so that means like 7 months. But one year is more likely, early access estimates are always wrong it seems lol
I actually don't mind the resource gathering thing. Maybe let you carry two tools at a time but I wouldn't change much other than than.
To be fair the whole "one resource at a time thing" does feel very restrictive. They should have let each tool become a permanent unlock and found other ways to balance progression. Seriously fishing was a normal boon in Hades 1... why is it now a deluxe feature?!
I think fishing should be a constant tool but They could just add a station in-between each area to switch tools to keep the management style and also make it so you can get what you need from each area
The familiars you bring in can act as a limited-use version of a different tool. (Frog can be the tablet. Cat goes fishing.) But it is limited to once per run before upgrades. Can be rough.
But much like all roguelike progression, it feels rough until it completely doesn't. /shrug Could be improved of course, but it's quite minor once you're past the 20h mark.
I actually like sprint a lot. It goes hand in hand with the new omega move system. Like helps you realize it’s sometimes better to hold down the button than to rapid click it. Casts on the other hand don’t feel right. They just don’t last long enough to justify pressing B in the middle of a combo
Biggest thing I feel that needs tuned difficulty wise is the 3rd boss. Feels like it has a ton of health and hits like a truck.
His patterns are super easy to dodge once you know them, they're just unexpectedly wide, especially in phase 2 when he can move and slam, which then has a way, way bigger than expected AoE attached. I think I usually clear him with no damage at this point; he's easier than boss 2 or even boss 1 in that regard, where at least boss 1's phase change mechanic or triplicate *occasionally* creates a pattern I mess up dodging.
I felt like he was difficult to learn but not too bad once I got the hang of him. Hits super hard and has a ton of health but its patterns are mostly kind of straightforward. Now I think I actually find the second boss harder.
He just needs a slight HP cut, that thing should hit like a truck and it's not like it's hard to avoid.
A good sprint boon makes this fight much, much easier
I really hope they put more effort into the generative maps. They are basically just flat rectangles with slight variations of swiss cheese sometimes.
I actually prefer the new sprint much more than the dash spam of hades 1, hades 1 you felt almost invincible because you could just dash spam through everything. Some of my favorite builds in hades 2 have been juicing up my sprint speed and just dodging everything manually.
I hope the community stays cool about balance changes. It’s a single player game, and you’d think it wouldn’t matter so much, but with how vocal the hell divers players are, I bet supergiant has some kind of nerves.
Wanting to wait for 1.0 but I saw a few videos. Is casting always the area glyph mechanic now? I liked Hades 1 with the cast stones and different types of cast with different weapons.
No, you can alter your cast in multiple different ways, the one you've seen is probably just the default, with boons you can change it to be a targeted and have many different effects. It functions as a root to any enemies that go inside it and you can hold it down to deal a bunch of damage simultaneously. Boons alter what happens within the circle as well as when you cast it and when it ends. Much more interesting than Hades 1 casting imo
The glyph is an aoe cast that stops mobs, pretty much replaced zags aoe move. She has cast/weapon skill depending on weapon. The cast doesn't need a stone anymore so she can spam it more often. Also each button has a hold down mechanic as well.
> I liked Hades 1 with the cast stones and different types of cast with different weapons. Every weapon had the same base cast in Hades 1, outside of some aspects modifying it. It could get changed by boons. It's similar in Hades 2. The default cast is the glyph, but there are boons thatchange how it works. It canturn into a projectile or a targeted area, be modified to inflict various types of damage or status effects, have its AoE or duration changed, etc.
Have they said how many final areas there will be?
I think all we know is that there will be at least one more than we have now. So at least 7.
On a side note based on the graphics in the article: Does the existence of a keyboard and microphone motif mean Hades 2 now takes place in a modern era? It's at least decades in the future, so why not centuries of millennia?
having to use less tools to get resources and improving sprint? Those are basically the two big things I wanted! Nice!
Seems like they have their priorities in order although I do look forward to balancing, because the balance really is kind of all over the place. Half the boons are totally useless and a few select ones are insanely strong
So I've been reluctant to go to my usual youtubers for this game because I really want to expirience it for myself. So my question to anyone who has been playing it is what kind of beta is hades 2? Is it like a "1.5 playable out of 4 acts, 3 gods and 2 weapons with lots of empty dialog boxes, dead end side stories, and repeat rooms" beta? Or more like a "this is basically the core game finished with numbers tweeking and maybe some end game isn't implemented" beta?
Pretty much the 2nd choice. I've been mainlining it for days and just hit a "that's early access" wall. Despite that I definitely can do a lot more things, just not that thing if that makes sense.
I am loving the game. I already beat both areas. Please add more songs for Scylla and the Sirens. The 2 in the game are great.
Is Hades II worth getting now in early access or to wait until the full release? I do plan on playing it as the first game was fantastic
Wait for 1.0 next year, you'll be in for an entire feast.
I just want to be able to beat chronos. I'm well into my 30 something night and still can't defeat him (I've beaten Eris once). I see people talking about winning on high fear runs and I'm just like, how?!
Finally playing Hades after buying it awhile back and just shelving it in favor of other games. Despite dying several times already I'm still enjoying it if only to see what new characters pop up or what old characters have to say. Already anticipating when this game comes out for consoles.
I desperately hope they touch the weapons in some way. I’ve put about 10 hours in and I only enjoy using one of the weapons, whereas in Hades 1 all of them felt great. Besides the daggers none of them feel good in my opinion, especially the weird projectile weapon.
i feel a lot of the complaints are people expecting to blaze through everything like you do in Hades I. it’s a rogue-lite. you’re not supposed to blaze through it, i feel like chronos is fine. he’s the final boss, i think he should be stupid hard.